FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

JOHN EVANS – As Days Go By October 14 – November 13, 2004

PAVEL ZOUBOK GALLERY is pleased to announce As Days Go By, an exhibition of mixed media collages by New York artist JOHN EVANS. Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, October 14 from 6-8pm, or during the run of the exhibition, which continues through November 13. The gallery is located at: 533 West 23 rd Street (between 10th & 11th Avenues). Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-6pm.

As Days Go By celebrates the publication of JOHN EVANS : Collages by The Quantuck Lane Press in October of this year. The exhibition features selections from the 365 “daily” collages that form this lavishly illustrated 384-page monograph.

Robert M. Murdock, independent curator and author of the introduction to the book writes:

“Beginning in 1964, artist John Evans made a collage every day on the page of a bound sketchbook, and stamped each collage with the date. Filling numerous books, he continued this practice through the year 2000 - the Millennium - which seemed to him an appropriate end date for the series. Evans' collage materials range from clippings, business cards, product stickers or labels and ticket stubs to bits of ephemera or anonymous snapshots found on the streets of his East Village neighborhood. Using colored inks, he builds upon the collage elements and creates lively, vibrant compositions. Recalling the small-scale works of modern masters such as Kurt Schwitters, Jean Arp and Paul Klee, Evans' works are in fact page-sized paintings that extend the boundaries of the collage medium. Formally, they reflect many aspects of their historical antecedents: the use of abstraction; the incorporation of typography and commercial illustration; the ironic juxtaposition, scale shifts and word/image play of Dada; and the disjointed, often erotic, imagery of Surrealism. Evans, however, tends to preserve the integrity of each element, outlining or highlighting it with color, rather than cutting and overlapping fragments into an intricate overall composition. His collages are mini-time capsules that mark the end of the Vietnam War, the fiscal crisis in New York City during the 1970s, the burgeoning economy, club scene and art market of the1980s, and the AIDS crisis with its devastating effect on the art world. In their daily production, they form both a personal diary and a universal commentary on urban life in the late 20th century.

Born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1932, John Evans studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and moved to New York in 1963. There he became part of the lively community of painters and poets during that fertile period in American art. His friends included collagist and mail-art pioneer Ray Johnson and painter Alice Neel, known for her incisive portraits of art-world personalities. Another artist friend, Ursule Molinaro, inspired the “Ursuline ducks” that appear as a constant motif in many of Evans' collages. His solo exhibitions include “New York Diary: The Collages of John Evans” at the New–York Historical Society, as well as gallery exhibitions at Cordier & Ekstrom, Gracie Mansion and Pavel Zoubok galleries in New York. He has also exhibited at Deptford X in London, the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, CA .

For additional information and images please contact Julie Brunner Cross at (212) 675 7490 or julie@pavelzoubok.com